The most important position, it is said, for any one to occupy this side of the kingdom of God is to be appointed an exhorting brother. This is undoubtedly true, and so vitally important to the spiritual welfare of every individual in the ecclesia that we are constrained to quote—and confirm—the excellent words in selections from, “Ecclesial Servants” by Bro. H. Tennant.
“True exhortation must come right out of God’s mind by His word into ours by hearing. It is altogether different from the moralizing in which humanists without Christ can freely indulge. Let us not be beguiled—or try to beguile others—by sweet appealing words about being good men and true. We are not to be good men only, we are to be new men, and only God can produce those: we are not to be merely truthful, but men of the Truth—God’s truth as revealed by Him.”
“The word of exhortation is no set speech, no display of oratory, or exhibition of a good memory or a discerning taste for good English. The world has enough of that. . .”
“We fail by imagining that skilful well-composed talks are the key to this matter—they are not. The key is our sympathetic handling of the word of God in the service of men and women on the way to eternal life. Keep them in mind and help them.”
“Unless words of exhortation reverberate with the themes of the kingdom of God, of the redemption of dying men by the death of the Son of God, of the return of the King and the day of resurrection and judgment, and of the need for being watchful in a sinful world, we are missing the mark.”
“No exhortation, however cleverly composed, has served its true purpose if it has failed to enter into the feelings of the hearers by showing true sympathy and compassion. . . It has not to abound in involved exposition, though it will make clear the Word of God, but it must go to the root of faith and life, hope and experience, trial and steadfastness. . .”
“Seek to follow Paul in his words when he ‘exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord’. . . Such is exhortation: not merely what is spoken, but what it is hoped to achieve.”
The future position, in the kingdom of God, of those who now fulfil their task of “exhorting one another daily” in this spirit and objective is that they shall become a permanent —and powerful—source of radiance, “like the stars”, because they have “turned many to righteousness”.
Fellowship with the Maker and Brethren